The Healthy Communities Research Centre, based at The University of Queensland’s Ipswich Campus, has been awarded a national grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to look at ways of developing sustainable communities.
The successful proposal, titled ‘Averting the Extinction of Experience’, was submitted in collaboration with Dr Richard Fuller, from UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, and the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship Project.
A total of $430,000 over three years will be provided by the ARC to undertake the research, which will focus on how changes in urban biodiversity affect health.
Healthy Communities Research Centre Director Professor Robert Bush said it was fantastic to see the local centre achieve such a prestigious award.
“The research findings from the grant have the potential to add to what we already know about the health of the Ipswich community,” he said.
“The project aims to understand how the biodiversity of old and new suburbs affects the health of human populations.
“Ipswich is an ideal place in which to apply findings from a study such as this because it’s a microcosm of established and developing areas.”
The centre is well known for its work within the Ipswich community and has brought more than $5 million in research funding to the Ipswich area since its inception in 2008. A number of local organisations have provided financial support for the centre and its headline project, The Ipswich Study.
The Ipswich Study is a long-term health research program that will unravel the complexities between neighbourhoods, residents and health by collecting information from volunteer families at regular intervals over 10 years and potentially beyond. For the first time, health research will provide a practical understanding of how people, places and their health are adapting to the economic, social, environmental and technological changes of this century.
The Ipswich Study will look at a city that is undergoing rapid change and enormous growth as the population doubles over the next twenty years.
Media: Stacey Vogel, Healthy Communities Research Centre, s.vogel@uq.edu.au or 0411 245 998
